Tuesday, August 19, 2014

Season Preview

The Spectrum's season preview is out and has a pretty solid write-up of our team and our goals.  Sorry to those that may not have been mention - use it as a drive to make sure you never get left off again!

Sunday, August 17, 2014

Weeks 8, 9 and 10 - Camp and Time Trial #1

Catching up a few weeks.
We had an excellent High Altitude Camp up at Pine Lake this summer.  There was a bit of everything: rain, thunder and lightning; swimming; trail runs; activities and food.  Our camp theme this year was "We' talkin' 'bout practice!" after the infamous Allen Iverson rant which was recreated perfectly by the most AI guy we have - Preston Warby!  The captains did a great job of focusing our camp on the importance of practice and other activities that bring us together as a team in our running and socially.  This one of our very best camps ever and we thank the captains, the camp cooks, those who helped drive and all the great runners.
Our last week of summer we had the conclusion of our Kids Club - which was a great success this year - and our first team Time Trial held at the PV course.  The Time Trial showed some great possibilities for our team.  The boys ran as a strong pack and ended with a nice close spread - especially nice was the 10 second spread from 3-7.  The hard work of summer really showed up on the girls side as good times were put up by many who will be pushing each other for every Varsity spot.
It was a great summer, full of hard work, miles and a lot of fun activities.  great job to all of you for starting off this season right!

Week 11 - Cedar, Relays and Run-a-Thon

Well... I have fallen behind as usual, but I figured to give us our update for where we are at and our preview of next week, then we'll get caught up ASAP.
What a busy week!  With the start of school, two races and our run-a-thon, it is a good one to have finished up!  Our first official race of the season - the Cedar All-Comers - went well.  The You fosters started us off well with Scottie Bushar having a strong race and girls letting the Region notice that we will be a force for years to come as we finished by claiming spots 2-7 and 9 of the top 12, led by great runs from Addi Baker, Sarah Snow and Sylvia Brown.  The high school ladies then followed the lead of their younger counterparts running very strong and taking 2nd to Cedar and led by a tight pack of Alli Peterson who finished in 8th at 19:56, Nicole Heinrich (9th, 20:03) and Josie Bushar (11th 20:06).  Freshmen Jacey Finch and Ellie Bushar also ran strong races finishing at 20:40 and taking 5th and 6th on the team.  It was a very good start to the season for the girls.  The boys also took a solid 2nd (to DH) placing all 5 scores in the top 20.  Leading the team was Nick Hill with a 15:55 finish and taking 6th overall.  Although the result showed we have a lot of work to do to meet our team goals, it was also a good race for the early season.
Later in the week, we held our first Desert Relays - a duel relay with DH held at the Region South Course.  The format saw the top 3 runners from each team compete together, followed by the next three, etc... Each completing a lap of the course at distances from 1.4, 1.5 and .85 miles.  Once again the youngster girls ran very well with our 8th grade team taking 2nd overall and the 6th grade girls taking 6th.  Our team of Nicole Heinrich (fastest Leg 1 of the meet), Ellie Bushar and Jacey Finch won the relay and led our PV girls to the inaugural team title.  On the boys side, our team showed improvement over Tuesday's result and closed the gap on DH just a little, narrowly missing out on winning with a 25-30 score.
We ended the night with our 12 hour Run-a-thon which was a great success.  A lot of miles were run -  102 by each team, in fact!, a lot of games, dancing, good food and tiredness!
Now we look forward to Week 12 which holds the SUU Invite on Saturday, starting at 8:00 at Bicenteniall Park in Cedar.  The bus will leave PV at 6:30 Sat. morning.  JV girls will race at 8:00, followed by the JV boys, Varsity girls and then Varsity boys.  As we get into this week, I want everyone to evaluate what you are doing in all aspects of your life and how it is effecting our team.  I have seen many of you getting to AM practices, recruiting, pushing yourself and others like you never have before.  And I know that as we continue this we will be reaching our goals individually and as a team.